Is there any way to make QT7 open M4V files that contain DTS audio tracks (as produced by the new HandBrake)? I'm not worried about pass-through audio output or anything -- I just want to be able to open the file and manipulate it in QT7.

QT10 will open such files (though it does not appear to process the DTS tracks) but QT7 just displays an error about an invalid file.

"Illegal" only insofar as "QuickTime does not recognize the code points for DTS". The ISO standard has included DTS code points for some time, and now HandBrake and several other video tools offer full support.

And opening things that QuickTime doesn't officially support is more or less the point of this project; I simply was wondering if there was some way to make that happen.

I was referring to the ISO standard when I said illegal; I stand corrected.

M4V opening is significantly more complex than other formats due to the fact that Apple's importer provides such good support. In order to replace it, Perian's would have to support every single feature that Apple's supported and more. Doing so is likely not a great use of our resources at this time, but we are certainly open to patches to make it so.

Hmmm... I now have to ask if this truly works at all. I was using handbrake last night, and I ripped with the DTS passthrough to M4V. Nothing I could find would detect that the track was present, not even mkvmerge saw it. I have to question now whether handbrake is actually putting the track in there.